Johannesburg to Victoria Falls: Khama, the Okavango Delta and Chobe

1. Day 1: Arrive in Johannesburg

   OR Tambo Airport to the Apartheid Museum, then your hotel

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Dinner
   • Stay in Johannesburg
   Day 1 details

   Fly into OR Tambo International Airport (JNB), where a driver meets you at arrivals. If you land by about 11 am, your See Sight Tours guide takes the early arrivals to the Apartheid Museum, south of the city centre, for about two hours with the entry paid. Its rooms walk you through the laws, the resistance and the 1994 election, and they explain much of what you will see on the road north. From there we drive to a hotel in the northern suburbs, close to restaurants and a short walk from shops. Later arrivals go straight to the hotel and can rest; if you want the museum and land late, add a night before the trip. At about 6 pm the guide meets the whole group for a briefing on the flights, the borders, the Delta camp and how each day is paced, then we walk to a welcome dinner nearby. Pack for tomorrow's flight tonight: one soft bag works best for the whole trip.

   Included

   • Pick-up at OR Tambo International Airport (JNB)
   • Apartheid Museum with your guide, entry included, for guests who land by about 11 am
   • Welcome briefing and welcome dinner

   Easier option: Skip the museum and go straight to the hotel to rest.

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing if you skip the museum

   Activity: The museum's opening days are confirmed with your final itinerary.

   

2. Day 2: Into Botswana and the Khama Rhino Sanctuary

   Johannesburg by air to Gaborone, then by road via Palapye to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary

   • Drive about 4.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Khama Rhino Sanctuary
   Day 2 details

   After an early breakfast we drive to OR Tambo for the flight to Gaborone, about an hour in the air; you clear Botswana immigration at the airport instead of a long road border. Our own vehicle and driver meet us there, and we head north on the A1 through the eastern Kalahari bush. The drive is about 345 km and four and a half hours, broken by a sit-down lunch in Palapye, roughly three hours in. Past Serowe, the home village of Botswana's first president, Sir Seretse Khama, the road reaches the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, a reserve run by a community trust that protects white and black rhino. We check in to an en-suite chalet or lodge room, then go out at about 4 pm in an open 4x4 with a sanctuary guide. As the light softens the rhino come out to graze and to the waterholes, alongside zebra, giraffe, wildebeest and springbok. Dinner tonight is together, at the sanctuary or the lodge.

   Included

   • Flight from Johannesburg to Gaborone
   • Sit-down lunch in Palapye
   • Sunset game drive in the Khama Rhino Sanctuary with a sanctuary guide, fees included

   Activity: About 4.5 hours on a tarred road after the flight, broken by lunch. Keep a warm layer for the late drive from May to August.

   

3. Day 3: Rhino at dawn, then west to Maun

   Khama Rhino Sanctuary via Letlhakane and Rakops to Maun

   • Drive about 6 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Maun
   Day 3 details

   Coffee before sunrise and a short dawn drive in the sanctuary, about 90 minutes, when the rhino are still active and the light is low. After breakfast comes the trip's one long road day: about 470 km and six hours to Maun, more than our usual 4-hour cap. We drive it because there is no scheduled flight from the Serowe area to Maun, and the alternatives either skip Khama or add a night in a town with little to see. We break it into three parts. A coffee stop at Letlhakane, the diamond-mining town, then a sit-down lunch on the road and a stretch by the Boteti River near Rakops, the river that forms the western boundary of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, where cattle, donkeys and sometimes zebra come to the water. The country turns greener as you near the Okavango. We reach a hotel on the Thamalakane River in Maun by late afternoon, with the evening free to rest or eat by the river.

   Included

   • Dawn game drive in the Khama Rhino Sanctuary
   • Sit-down lunch on the road to Maun
   • Stop at the Boteti River near Rakops

   Easier option: Skip the dawn drive and have a slow breakfast before the road.

   Free time: Evening free in Maun

   Activity: About 6 hours of driving on tarred roads with three stops. Our vehicle has air-conditioning and every guest has a window seat.

   

4. Day 4: By mokoro into the Okavango Delta

   Maun by 4x4 to a poling station, then by mokoro to a camp in the Okavango Delta

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Okavango Delta
   Day 4 details

   After breakfast we leave the main bags in Maun and take an overnight bag on a 4x4 transfer of about an hour and a half into a community area on the edge of the Delta, where local polers wait at the water with their mokoros, the Delta's narrow poled canoes, two guests to a boat. The water carries us in, silent through the reeds and papyrus, past lily pads and small islands, to a permanent tented camp: proper beds, your own bathroom with a flush toilet and hot shower, and all meals cooked for you. This is not a bush camp and you do not pitch a tent. Lunch at camp, then rest through the heat of the day. In the late afternoon we go out by mokoro again to look for hippo, reed frogs and the birds of the channels, and come back for a fire, a sundowner and dinner. The Okavango was listed by UNESCO in 2014.

   Included

   • 4x4 transfer to the poling station
   • Mokoro trip into the Delta with local polers
   • Late-afternoon mokoro outing
   • All meals at camp

   Free time: Midday free at camp

   Activity: Mokoro trips depend on the flood. When water is low, usually from about October, the camp uses a motorboat and walks instead; we tell you at booking.

5. Day 5: On foot and on the water in the Delta

   A full day at the camp in the Okavango Delta

   • By boat
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Okavango Delta
   Day 5 details

   Coffee and rusks by the fire before sunrise, then a crossing by mokoro to a larger island for a guided walk with a licensed guide and your poler, in the coolest and quietest hours of the day. On foot you notice what a vehicle drives past: last night's tracks in the sand, termite mounds that seed new islands, red lechwe splashing off through the shallows, elephant dung still warm. The guide decides how close is safe, and the group walks in single file and talks quietly. We are back at camp by late morning for a cooked breakfast, with lunch later, and the middle of the day is yours: sleep, read, or watch the lagoon from the shade. In the late afternoon we head out again by mokoro to a spot chosen for the sunset, with a drink as the light goes over the floodplain. Dinner at camp, then the hippos calling in the dark. If you would like to see the Delta from above, a scenic flight from Maun can be added.

   Included

   • Dawn guided island walk with a licensed guide and your poler
   • Sunset mokoro outing
   • All meals at camp

   Easier option: Skip the walk and stay at camp, then join the gentle sunset mokoro.

   More active option: A longer walk of about three hours on a bigger island, where the guide allows it.

   Free time: Middle of the day free at camp

   Activity: The walk is 2 to 3 hours on flat, sandy ground at a slow pace. Wear neutral colours and closed shoes.

6. Day 6: Over the Delta to Kasane

   Okavango Delta by mokoro and 4x4 to Maun, then by air to Kasane

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Kasane
   Day 6 details

   A last early mokoro back to the poling station, while the birds are busiest, then the 4x4 to Maun, where we collect the main bags. From Maun Airport we fly north-east to Kasane, about an hour in the air, on a scheduled flight or a light-aircraft charter (confirmed with your final itinerary). It replaces about 600 km of road through Nata, and on a clear day the window shows the edge of the Delta, then the dry woodland and the Chobe River. Lunch is in Maun or Kasane, depending on the flight time. A short drive takes us to our lodge near the Chobe River for two nights. The afternoon is free: swim, sleep, or sit by the river and watch the boats go out. Dinner is together at the lodge, and your guide talks through tomorrow's dawn start and how the day is paced.

   Included

   • Mokoro and 4x4 transfer back to Maun
   • Flight from Maun to Kasane
   • Lunch, and dinner at the lodge

   Free time: Afternoon free at the lodge

   Activity: Keep to one soft bag of about 20 kg, hand luggage included; the exact limit comes with your flight confirmation.

   

7. Day 7: Chobe by land at dawn and by water at sunset

   Kasane to Chobe National Park and back, twice

   • Drive about 15 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Kasane
   Day 7 details

   We leave the lodge before sunrise in two open 4x4s, at most six guests in each, to be at the Sedudu gate of Chobe National Park, Botswana's first national park, as it opens. The first hours are the best on land: the air is cool, the cats are still active, and the riverfront track is quiet before the day visitors arrive. The drive follows the river west along the floodplain, stopping wherever the animals are: elephant and buffalo herds, giraffe, sable in the woodland, and puku, an antelope rarely seen elsewhere in Botswana. Lions and leopards are seen here, though never promised. We are back by late morning, with lunch at the lodge and a free middle of the day. At about 3 pm we board a boat for the river, when the elephants come down in family herds to drink, swim and cross to the islands, with hippos and crocodiles along the banks. We stay out until the sun drops over Namibia. Dinner is free.

   Included

   • Dawn game drive in Chobe National Park in an open 4x4, park fees included
   • Lunch at the lodge
   • Late-afternoon boat cruise on the Chobe River, park fees included

   Easier option: Sit the dawn drive out and join only the afternoon cruise.

   Free time: Middle of the day and the evening free

   Activity: Bring a warm layer and a hat: dawn in an open vehicle is cold from May to August.

8. Day 8: Across the border to Victoria Falls

   Kasane through the Kazungula border to Victoria Falls, then the Falls

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Victoria Falls
   Day 8 details

   Breakfast, then we leave Kasane at about 8:30 am for Victoria Falls, about 80 km and an hour and a half on the road. First comes the Kazungula road border: we leave Botswana and enter Zimbabwe, where you buy your visa at the post in US dollars if you do not already have one (we confirm the fee when you book), and your guide steers the group through the forms. Allow up to an hour. Past the border the road runs through mopane woodland, where elephants sometimes cross, into Victoria Falls town. Lunch is a sit-down meal in town, then we check in. In the afternoon a local guide walks us through the Victoria Falls Rainforest on the Zimbabwe side, from the statue of David Livingstone past the Devil's Cataract and the Main Falls to Danger Point, about two hours with the entry paid. The Falls are about 1.7 km wide and drop up to 108 m into the gorge. In the evening we meet for a farewell dinner.

   Included

   • Transfer from Kasane to Victoria Falls through the Kazungula border with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch in Victoria Falls town
   • Guided walk of the Victoria Falls Rainforest, entry included
   • Farewell dinner

   Optional experiences

   • Zambezi sunset cruise above the Falls (priced at booking)

   Easier option: Walk only to the Devil's Cataract and Main Falls viewpoints, then rest at the hotel.

   Activity: Keep your passport, the visa fee in US dollars and a pen in your day bag. The Falls path is about 3 km, mostly flat with some steps, and wet in high water.

9. Day 9: Departure from Victoria Falls

   Victoria Falls to Victoria Falls Airport

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast
   Day 9 details

   A free morning. If you want the Falls again, go back at opening, before the tour groups, with a new ticket; from about July the view is clearer as the spray drops. Or take a helicopter flight over the Falls, walk out to the Victoria Falls Bridge, or browse the craft market for baskets and carvings. Your guide stays until the airport transfers leave and checks everyone's flight times. Victoria Falls Airport (VFA) is about 20 km south of town, roughly 25 minutes by road, and a driver takes you there in time for your flight; most flights go to Johannesburg for connections home. If you would like a second night at the Falls, for rafting or the Zambezi cruise, ask us when you book and we add the night and the transfer. For the flight home, allow at least two hours at the airport and choose a flight that leaves after about 1 pm so you keep the morning.

   Included

   • Drop-off at Victoria Falls Airport (VFA)

   Optional experiences

   • Helicopter flight over the Falls (priced at booking)
   • Victoria Falls Bridge tour
   • White-water rafting below the Falls, in season, with an extra night

   Free time: Morning free

   Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 1 pm to keep the morning.

Wildlife and weather: May to October is the dry season. The Delta flood usually reaches the Maun side from about June and is highest until about August, which is when the mokoro trips run best; from about October the camp may switch to motorboat and walks as the water drops. As the bush dries, animals gather on the Chobe River, so September and October are the strongest months there, but also hot, often above 35°C. Dawns from May to August are cold in open vehicles and boats. Victoria Falls is fullest and spray heaviest from about March to June, lowest in October and November.

• Johannesburg1 night
• Khama Rhino Sanctuary1 night
• Maun1 night
• Okavango Delta2 nights
• Kasane2 nights
• Victoria Falls1 night